A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

CONDOMS-IN-PORN A LOCK FOR 2016 BALLOT

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2015, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“CONDOMS-IN-PORN A LOCK FOR 2016 BALLOT”

The ballot
initiative carnival predicted when it became clear how few valid voter
signatures would be needed to qualify measures for next year’s November ballot
is now officially underway.

Backers of parental
notification before teenage abortions now appear set to qualify their measure
for the third time since 2000. A referendum to overturn the recently-approved
statewide ban on plastic grocery bags has already made the ballot. Others
collecting signatures include a measure providing $9 billion in school bonds, a
referendum to reverse the new law requiring virtually all school children to
get vaccinations, and another substituting one big state-owned utility for the
likes of Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego
Gas & Electric.

At the attorney
general’s office awaiting official titles are measures converting future
California governors into presidents of the semi-independent republic of
California and declaring the state’s Bear Flag equal to the Stars and Stripes.

Four tentative measures would legalize
marijuana and one would vastly increase tobacco taxes while trying to cut down
on smoking.

Some of these ideas
are mere gleams in the eyes of sponsors willing to invest $200 to getting their
propositions named and then hoping someone will invest enough money in them to
gather 365,880 signatures, almost 140,000 less than were required to reach the
ballot two years ago. The huge reduction in what’s needed to qualify a
proposition stems from last year’s extremely low voter turnouts.

In this morass of
measures, one idea that’s already been tested both at the ballot box and in
real life stands out: requiring condom use in all adult films shot anywhere in
California. As of early spring, this measure already had one-fourth of the
signatures needed, with four months left to get more.

The idea is to stop
the spread of AIDS among adult film workers who then might transmit it to
others.

This tactic was
first approved by Los Angeles County voters three years ago, passing by a 57-43
percent margin as the local Measure B. The pornography industry responded by
moving most production out of its longtime center in the San Fernando Valley
portion of Los Angeles. Some filming went to neighboring Ventura and Riverside
counties, but the biggest emigration was to Las Vegas, where the industry was
embraced by much of the community, including the mayor, who issued a formal
welcome statement.

This led
pornography producers yearning to move back to their old Los Angeles digs to
claim the local condoms-in-porn law had not accomplished much of anything,
other than to shuffle risks around, and that the same would happen if
California passed a similar statewide law. Many state legislators bought into
this claim, so moves for a state condom requirement went nowhere.

But then, only
months after large-scale porn video production began in Las Vegas, a single
AIDS case changed things considerably, mostly because of the careful regulation
Nevada gives prostitution in counties where it’s legal.

Legal prostitutes get regular blood tests
and health exams, with male customers required to use condoms for any
interpersonal contact. Nothing like that has ever applied to most adult film
actors.

When the infection last fall quickly
caused Nevada officials to begin drafting similar regulations for porn movie
shoots, questions quickly arose about where else adult movie producers might
move. It became apparent they can’t go far, with adult filming illegal in the
blue-nosed likes of Louisiana, Georgia, New York and 45 other states.

All this means the likelihood is that a
statewide California law requiring condoms in porn has a better chance of
succeeding than it did a few years ago. Sure, some producers would go
underground and film "bareback" without permits or compliance with
the condom mandate, as they still do in Los Angeles.

But the arguments
that such a law would mean big financial losses for California have largely
been removed by the reaction to the first movie-related AIDS case in Las Vegas,
which means this initiative – unlike many now proposed – is not only likely to
make the ballot, but stands a good chance of passage and eventual enforcement
success.

-30-
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski
Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign
to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is
tdelias@aol.com

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.